JAN STAUBER,
ASH
The Hotel du Louvre,
Paris
FOND MEMORIES by Francine Kitts
“We’ll always have Paris.” That was the mantra we adopted after Jan and I spent
a week there together this year -- and yes, it was in April. It was my first
trip to Paris and we stayed in Jan and Al’s charming apartment on rue Saint
Dominique. We were positively giddy seeing and doing everything that
wonderful city has to offer. Jan was thrilled that I was so enchanted with
Paris, and I was thrilled that Jan was my mentor. She created a week of memories
that I will cherish forever.
We did the usual things one
does on a first trip to Paris because Jan was determined that I would see as
much as possible, even if she’d seen these things umpteen times. But how many
tourists get to buy a step stool and drag it home on a bus? We laughed until our
sides ached. We took pictures at Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Moulin Rouge, the
Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Montmartre, and of course at the Hotel du Louvre,
Paris, Jan’s ASH investiture. Adventuresses would never miss that opportunity!
As we traveled around
Paris, I was fascinated watching Jan charm her friends, shopkeepers, waiters,
and anyone with whom she was in contact. She didn’t think her French was up to
par, and since my vocabulary consists of merci,
oui, bonjour, and au
revoir, I wouldn’t know, but what I saw was my amazing friend weave her
magic spell. In addition to being able to make herself understood, she had the
uncanny ability to banter, not only with friends, but with total strangers. Her
sense of humor came through and she even made shopkeepers laugh. What a woman!
In addition to being an
eternal optimist, Jan was the most positive, upbeat, no-nonsense person I’ve
ever known. She met every battle with fierce determination and never lost her
sense of humor through it all. She never wanted sympathy and fought valiantly
for almost three years without ever feeling sorry for herself. Even at the very
end, Jan was still asking how everybody else was doing – and she could,
amazingly, still laugh. She was a true tower of strength and a hero to all her
friends.
Jan's husband Al [Gregory]
was her soul mate and they were the best of friends. We who were lucky enough to
count ourselves as her friends will miss her every day. She taught us so much
and we will carry her indomitable spirit with us forever. We’ll always have
Paris.
Remembering Jan
Stauber by Alexian Gregory, BSI
Janice (“Jan”) Carol Stauber was born on 29 November 1943 in Newark, NJ, the
second of 4 children born to Theodore and Gertrude Stauber. She had an older
brother, Donald, a younger brother Richard and a younger sister, Kathe.
Jan was brought up in Verona, NJ in a house purchased by her parents one year
before her birth. She went to the Forest Avenue Elementary School one block away
from her home. She then went to Verona High School from which she graduated in
1961.
She attended Westminster College in Pennsylvania. This Presbyterian college was
where she broke from her Presbyterian faith. She would not accept its doctrine
that everyone is predestined for either heaven or hell regardless of whatever
good or evil they committed in their lifetime. She graduated in 1965.
Jan received her Masters in counseling from Montclair State College in 1977. She
taught for some 17 years in Verona at the F.N. Brown elementary school. Her
secondary job was working at Turning Point, an outpatient facility for those
with drug/alcohol problems.
Jan was a very gifted drug and alcohol counselor. She was a highly sensitive
person who could “read” people and understand them on a very deep level with few
if any obvious clues. I witnessed many examples of this preternatural gift which
almost never failed her. Her use of this arcanely derived knowledge helped her
enormously in guiding her clients to clean and sober lives.
In the mid-1980s Jan left education and studied computer programming at the
prestigious and very demanding Chubb Institute. She graduated with flying colors
and was subsequently employed as a computer programmer. But after a few years of
this she felt very dissatisfied. She needed contact with people and not
machines. Her interaction with people energized her.
Jan found work as a Substance Abuse Counselor at Roxbury (NJ) Middle School.
After a few years there she transferred to Woodrow Wilson Middle School in
Clifton, NJ. Here she worked as a Student Assistance Counselor for some 15
years. Her students respected and loved her. Many students loved come down to
the office to spend time with her and find great comfort from their home and
school problems. Not a few of them invented reasons just to see her.
On several occasions Jan received letters from these former students who had
gone on to college and were now raising their own families. These letters
emphatically and lovingly described the difference Jan had made in their lives
by her attention and guidance. One particular instance comes to mind. A girl was
distraught because she could not go to the junior prom. Why? Her family could
not afford to buy her a dress. Jan bought her the blue dress that this girl had
her wistful eyes on. The girl went to the Junior Prom. It was a happy ending the
student never forgot.
Jan would have been the first to tell you that she was no intellectual. But she
was extremely intelligent. She joined Mensa, the high IQ society which admits
only those who have scored at or above the 98th percentile in a standardized
intelligence test.
Like many great people Jan was very self-effacing. She could never understand
why people marveled at her counselor skills, nor could she understand how she
qualified for Mensa.
Jan served Mensa well in a number of capacities: as local secretary (president)
of Northern NJ Mensa; as a proctor in administering IQ tests to prospective
members of Mensa; on various Regional Gathering committees; and on one
(National) Annual Gathering Committee.
On 21 August 1984 Jan and I had our first date. In September of 1986 I moved in
with her to live in the house in which she grew up. On 2 July 1988 we became
engaged on our third trip together in Avebury England under an ancient tree. On
7 June 1989 we were married in our Verona home.
Jan loved to travel. The world was her treasure chest she often explored looking
for gems. In the course of her life she visited 30 countries. When we began our
joint travels starting with a trip to England and Wales in 1985 Jan was an
Anglophile. She enjoyed seeing the British countryside, churches, quaint
villages, etc. She took especial delight in seeing sheep in rural settings. Jan
even took to collecting sheep in the form of sweaters, T-shirts, and stuffed
animals.
Jan and I visited 22 countries together. We traveled from Iceland to China, from
the USSR to Egypt and from Turkey to Sweden. But after we went to France
together for the first time, Jan’s “loyalties” changed. She went from
anglophilia to francophilia. She loved everything about France---food, people,
sights. Visiting France never became old for her. Each time she went there her
batteries were recharged. This was never truer than in the month after she was
diagnosed.
Family was very important to Jan. She loved organizing our annual Christmastime
dinners when her siblings would come over and we’d feast and exchange gifts. Jan
combined this love of family with travel. She took at a few trips to France with
them, and one trip to China. On one of her French trips the Stauber clan biked
through Burgundy stopping at numerous local vineyards to improve Franco-American
relations and to courteously sample the local wines.
Jan had no interest in Sherlock Holmes before I came into her life. In May 1984,
a few months before we began dating, I was scheduled to give a talk on Sherlock
Holmes at Northern NJ Mensa’s Regional Gathering. Jan came to hear my talk, not
because she had any interest in the subject, but because she feared I would be
addressing an empty room. After all, she reasoned, who would go to a talk on
Sherlock Holmes of all things? Jan arrived late and there wasn’t an empty seat
in the room!
She grew to love Sherlock Holmes and become active in the Sherlockian world. She
was a founder of the Baskerville Bash, the alternate dinner to the annual BSI
event in January. She performed many roles for the Bash, but her absolute
favorite was performing as a Sherlette.
The Sherlettes were a group of ladies, (and occasional men) organized by Jane
Hinckley. They performed rock and roll songs whose lyrics had been changed to
Sherlockian themes. Jan loved getting up in front of an audience and making them
laugh and smile. Jan usually referred to the Sherlettes as “a bunch of old
broads having a good time.”
In 1997 she presented a very well-received talk at Autumn in Baker Street
entitled “A Pin, A Cork, A Card.” It analyzed Stapleton as a lepidopterist (and
was scientific and informative). But most of all, it was funny.
In 1998, along with me, she was appointed as a Director of Mrs. Hudson’s
Cliffdwellers of Edgewater, NJ. Jan loved this role. She performed many
functions as a Director, but one of the most notable ones was her designing of
the games to be played at our meetings twice a year. She also enjoyed leading
our group in Sherlockian songs.
Jan
combined her love of Sherlock Holmes with her love of children in a unique and
important way. Each year Jan would borrow my Inverness, deerstalker, a pipe,
magnifying glass, some Sherlockian plush dolls etc. Then she would go to the 7th
and 8th grades in Woodrow Wilson Middle School and pretend to be Holmes himself.
She would “study” various children under her lens and make “deductions” about
them. Then she’d give a talk on Holmes, Doyle and the Victorian world. The
children listed with rapt attention. There was no whispering, yawning, or
mischief. Jan did this in conjunction with the English teachers who were
studying a Holmes story. I believe that the particular adventure was the
Red-Headed League.
She did this each year she worked in that school, about 15 years in all. So many
hundreds of students became interested in Holmes as a direct result of Jan’s
engaging presentation.
When the school designed a poster to encourage reading, it showed Jan as Holmes
reading the Canon!
In 2004 the Beacon Society, a scion devoted to introducing young people to
Sherlock Holmes, presented its first Beacon Award. It was given to Jan in honor
of her many years of addressing those 7th and 8th graders. I was told that when
the committee had to vote on the first honoree, it was unanimously for Jan.
Jan had a very strong artistic/creative side. She learned to make beautiful
objects from stained glass. She was very proficient at needlework, even its most
difficult demanding, and unforgiving variant---counted cross-stitching.
But the greatest expression of her artistry was in our garden. Jan spent
countless hours there under a blazing hot sun planting, transplanting, weeding
and watering. “I love getting dirty in the garden!” she would say with that
broad smile on her face under her floppy straw hat. Many were the times that I
witnessed neighbors stopping by to compliment Jan on her horticulture.
In January of 2003 Jan was diagnosed with stomach cancer and given a maximum of
18 months to live. She flatly refused to accept this. In addition to surgery,
radiation, and chemotherapy Jan embarked on a dedicated course of self-healing.
She did various physical exercises, meditation, guided imagery, affirmations
(telling herself out loud that she was getting better), aromatherapy, and
massage therapy, and hypnotherapy.
All of these activities did, indeed, make her feel good about herself. This
boosted her immune system immeasurably. So instead of a mere 18 months, she
lived healthfully and energetically for nearly three years. People were
absolutely amazed when she told them she had cancer, so “normal” was she in
appearance and so energetic in manner.
Jan died peacefully on 7 October 2005 in our Verona home that she loved so much.
In accordance with her specific wishes I deposited most of her ashes in the
Seine. I buried a smaller portion in L’Esplanade des Invalides, that wonderful
park near our Paris apartment. Small portions of her ashes were also buried
under the tree in Avebury where I proposed to her. And another portion are now
under the magnolia tree in front of our house. She is in those places she loved
most ---Paris, Avebury and Verona.
This self-effacing and incredibly modest woman was posthumously honored with
several Sherlockian obituaries: two in Britain, one in France, one in Denmark,
and some in the US.
I lost the very best friend I ever had, but I continue to celebrate the 21
wonderful years we had together. She was very much the best and wisest woman I
have ever known.
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